Before anything else: God loves you all the time, including on the days when you feel sad or tired.
You know when a grown-up lights the candle on a birthday cake and a little breeze comes along? The flame starts flickering and flickering, and it looks as if it might go out at any moment.
And what do people do then? They put a hand around it, really close, to shield the flame from the wind.
Today's Bible verse talks about a flame that is flickering. And there is a very important detail: a flickering flame has not gone out yet. There is still time to protect it.
Sometimes we feel like that too. Sad, tired, not wanting to do anything. It is as if our own flame is flickering on the inside.
And sometimes it is a friend who feels like that. They got something wrong, they feel embarrassed, and they are sitting alone in the corner at break time.
At a moment like that there are two ways to act. One is to blow: laugh at them, tell everybody what they got wrong. The other is to put a hand around the flame: go over and be kind.
And look at what the Bible says about Jesus. It says he does not put out a light that is flickering. Jesus always puts his hand around it.